Tough Luck Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  She shrugged. “Are you?”

  He knew he was. But he wasn’t about to admit why that knowledge was a certainty, that since he’d found out about Tucker asking for a divorce, he hadn’t been able to sleep with another woman. Yeah, no way in hell he could mention that. So he answered her with the simplest form of the truth.

  “Yes.”

  And just like that, she sank over him, burying him deep inside her, crying out as she did, her back arching and hands raking through her own hair.

  A low growl tore from his chest.

  He’d been with other women like this. It wasn’t anything new. And yet he already knew it was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.

  He knew it by the way they fit.

  He knew it by the way she trusted him enough to want to let go.

  He knew it because it was her.

  Didn’t she know how alike they really were? Despite him living with high risk always in the saddle beside him, Luke Everett controlled the most important part of his life—his heart.

  But right now, he was far beyond the strains of his own cultivated control, and he was bound and determined to take her over the edge with him.

  He cupped her ass in his palms as they quickly found their rhythm, slow and measured at first, but when she dropped down to kiss him, her soft moans filling the air between them as his tongue slipped past her parted lips, he thrust deeper, faster, wondering how long the two of them could hold out before this lit fuse exploded.

  He tested his theory by sliding his hand between the place where they joined, his thumb tracing her wet, swollen center in firm, deliberate circles.

  Her breathing hitched, and she kissed him harder.

  He felt her start to pulse around him.

  Her breaths came in small gasps, and he opened his eyes to find hers locked on him.

  Together, he thought. They were going to let go together.

  “Luke,” she said softly, in a short suspended moment before they drove off that cliff.

  “I know,” he whispered.

  And then he cupped her cheeks in his palms, drew her mouth to his, and let go of the wheel.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lily woke before the morning light had a chance to filter through her bedroom curtains. No alarm necessary. Her internal clock was forever programmed to Get up and go before the day gets away from you. On any given day, she needed to be at the restaurant by 6:00 a.m. to receive the shipment of fresh goods. Plus, she liked it—the routine of it all, the organization it brought to her daily life so much so that her body no longer required an external clock. It just knew.

  Much like it knew how to react to the touch of the man sleeping beside her.

  She stared at Luke, at how beautiful he was, and wondered how this realization had escaped her before. Yes, the gene pool had certainly been kind to all three of the Everett men, but something had shifted in the way she saw him now.

  Could sex do that? Change the way you saw someone?

  Fucking hell, Lily. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?

  What had his words meant? Was he talking about just last night? About the past couple of weeks since that crazy first kiss? Or was it something more—something connected to her admitting she had her sights set on him that night in the bar, the night she went home with Tucker Green.

  She shook her head, trying to shake away the notion that there was anything more to what happened last night other than them burning off an inexplicable chemistry.

  Still, she didn’t stop herself from tracing the line of his jaw as he slept, fingertip brushing over the rough stubble that suited his rugged looks.

  His brows furrowed, and she frowned in reaction. Sleep was supposed to be where people found peace. But with Luke it seemed to be the other way around.

  She smoothed his hair away from his forehead, hoping to smooth away whatever plagued his sleep.

  “You gonna kiss me good morning, sweetheart? Or are ya just a tease?”

  Lily gasped and snatched her hand away, then backhanded him lightly on the shoulder as he opened his eyes.

  “Jesus, you scared me!” Her heart hammered in her chest, but it continued to do so even after she caught her breath. This was—new.

  He propped himself up on his elbow, his steely blue stare making her feel naked. She peeked under the sheet. Okay, more naked than she already was.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, the corner of his mouth crooking into the patented Luke Everett grin.

  “I—”

  But he cut her off.

  “And you didn’t object to sweetheart.” He leaned closer. “Admit it. The name’s growing on you.”

  “I—” she started again, but this time he did what she’d been too hesitant to do and kissed her.

  All the thoughts racing through her head, like What are we doing? and Are we going to do it again? and How bad is my morning mouth? and Why won’t my heart rate slow down? melted away as she melted into him.

  She wasn’t sure any man had the right to be this delicious first thing in the morning, but it wasn’t worth questioning what she should just enjoy.

  He nipped at her bottom lip, then parted his own, inviting her inside. She hummed a soft moan as he deepened the kiss, then smiled as she felt him harden against her thigh.

  She guessed they were doing it again—a repeat performance of last night. Only this time he took his time with her, and she with him.

  She led him to her shower after that. Amid the steam and ceramic tile, he lathered her hair, slid his hands over her slick body.

  “If I call in an order for an extra water heater, can we stay in here all day?” she asked as he pressed her naked body to his.

  “Don’t have any pressing matters until sunrise at least,” he said, then kissed her. “You always wake up before the sun?”

  She kissed his chest, then looked up at him and nodded.

  “One of the perks of working in the restaurant business,” she said, smiling at the memory of her former early-morning routine. “My internal clock can’t seem to forget, though.”

  He lifted a lock of wet hair and tucked it behind her ear. “You miss it,” he said. “The restaurant. Don’t you?”

  She nodded again. “Not the actual place itself. But the idea of it. Yeah.”

  Despite her wish for an eternal shower, the water was already growing cold. So she reached behind Luke and turned it off.

  He held her close for several long seconds. The glass shower doors were a bubble protecting them from whatever lay outside, so she took one more leap—one more risk—before retreating to safety again.

  “We need to talk about…I mean, when you leave are you…” She groaned. “We have to tell Tucker, right?”

  There it was, that tick in his jaw—his tell, she realized. It seemed to be the only sign of true emotion he revealed, yet what it pointed to she had no clue.

  “Lily,” he said, his forehead dropping against hers, but despite having made love to this man twice in the span of twelve hours, her name sounded like it was falling from a stranger’s lips.

  “Yeah?” she asked, even though she knew what was coming.

  “You know I don’t do serious, right? It’s why things played out the way they did three years ago.”

  She slid the shower door open and stepped out. The This meant nothing conversation wasn’t one she wanted to continue naked.

  She pulled a towel from the rack and wrapped it around her body, then yanked off the second one and slapped it against his chest.

  She winced slightly, remembering his healing ribs and shoulder, but she’d be damned if she was going to apologize.

  “Of course,” she said, voice even. “That’s why they call rebounds rebounds. They don’t last. And I don’t remember asking you to move in. You’d just made it clear that your loyalty to Tucker was so important that I thought you’d want to come clean with him.”

  She spun on her heel and strode out of the bathroom, the bed
room, and to the safety of the kitchen, where soon there would be coffee.

  She stood staring at the French press, waiting for the kettle to boil, when she heard him approach. She squared her shoulders, turned, and lifted her chin. Then she realized she was dressed in a towel and could only look so proud while he—well, he stood there with his damp hair, his stubbled jaw, and wearing his worn rancher’s jeans and nothing else.

  Dammit. Did this guy ever have an awkward phase, maybe in his teens? Because she’d pay to get her hands on evidence of that, anything that would make it easier to look at him without her own physical need betraying her.

  “Lily,” he said, a hint of pleading in his voice.

  “Luke,” she countered, a hint of haughtiness in hers.

  He stepped closer, and she was grateful for the breakfast bar between them.

  “Look, I think we got our signals crossed. I don’t want you to think—”

  A crackling sound came from his pocket.

  “Hey, asshole. Not sure where you dropped your drawers last night, but Gertie is calving, and we could use your help.”

  “Christ, Walker,” Luke said under his breath, then pulled the phone from his pocket. “I’ll be there in about three minutes,” he said, speaking into the phone like it was a walkie-talkie, which apparently it was.

  He glanced up at her, raising a brow and giving her that irresistible roguish grin.

  “You want to see ole Gertie do her job?” he asked. “We need to be out the door in about ninety seconds if you do.”

  She was so taken aback by the turn of events that the word was out of her mouth before she considered any of the implications.

  “Yes.” She nodded enthusiastically. “I’d love to.”

  In exactly ninety seconds she’d turned off the stove, padded back to her room, and thrown on a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. Now she was in the passenger seat of Luke’s truck, finger combing her still wet hair. And it wasn’t until they were well out of her driveway that it hit her. The—implications.

  “So we’re just going to show up at the ranch at dawn. Together?” she asked.

  He nodded, the corner of his mouth turning up.

  “You in yesterday’s clothes and me—both of us with wet hair?”

  He nodded again but kept his eyes on the road.

  “Look,” he said as they pulled down the road that led to the ranch. “I was trying to tell you something back there, but it came out all wrong.” He came to a stop in front of the barn, then turned to face her. “There’s something going on here,” he said, motioning back and forth between them. “I’m not denying that. But I’m also not denying who I am. I do owe Tucker my loyalty. For more reasons than I can explain right now. So yes, he needs to know what happened, and I’ll figure out how to tell him. But I also owe you the truth. And the truth is that me and permanency don’t mix—except with my family.” He forced a smile. “Because they don’t have a choice.”

  She let out a bitter laugh.

  What about what I choose? She wanted to say. But instead she said, “Oil and water, huh?”

  His smile faded.

  “I don’t regret last night,” he said. “Or this morning.” He raised a brow. “That was some fucking chemistry. But—”

  She held up her hands, a motion to surrender, because she knew what was coming next. And he was right.

  “But we don’t mix outside the bedroom. I get it. And I’m not arguing with you. Can we just—can we keep the whole emotional breakdown between us, though? It’s bad enough I almost killed my ex-husband’s fiancée. I don’t want everyone worrying about me or thinking this wedding is too much for me to handle.”

  He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a fist slamming against the hood of the truck.

  They both bolted to attention to find Walker Everett’s impatient blue eyes glaring at them.

  “Come on, dickhead. You’re late. Gertie ain’t got all morning.”

  Luke opened the door and poked his head out. “How long she been in labor?” he asked.

  Walker’s face was grim. “Too long,” was all he said, then started walking again.

  So they both hopped out of the vehicle, following Walker as he shoved some sort of device in the back pocket of his jeans and led them out to the pasture where Jack, Ava, and Owen formed an arc around a heifer—presumably Gertie—lying in the grass.

  “She’s laboring hard,” Jack said, dropping to a squat and rubbing Gertie’s side. “Harder than I’ve ever seen from any of the herd, and we’re at the tail end of calving season. Something’s not right.” He wiped his forearm across his brow. “We tried getting her inside the gate, but she just sorta collapsed right here.”

  Gertie let out some sort of guttural sound that made Lily shiver.

  “Ava.” Jack looked up at his fiancée and gave her a curt nod. She nodded back, some silent message passing between them, and she put her arm around their son.

  “Owen, honey, let’s head back to the ranch and get breakfast going. Your dad and uncles are gonna be hungry after this.” She turned her gaze to Lily. “You want to come with us?”

  No one had even asked Lily why she was there. She knew that was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. She also knew that Ava was trying to shield her from whatever she was about to witness, just like she was Owen, but Lily shook her head.

  “I’m gonna stay and help,” Lily said, conviction in her voice.

  Ava pressed her lips into a smile. Owen didn’t protest as she led him away, and Lily braced herself for what was coming next when Gertie let out a panicked sound again.

  Lily gasped.

  “We need to get that calf out,” Luke said. “She can’t do it on her own.”

  All three brothers were in the grass beside the cow.

  “What can I do?” she asked, realizing her presence was probably more trouble than help.

  Luke glanced up at her, brushed his hair off his forehead, and nodded toward the barn.

  “Walker, you got a bottle ready just in case?” he asked.

  Walker nodded.

  “Head into the barn,” he said to Lily. “There’s a supply area at the far end with a few shelves lining the wall. Grab what looks like an oversize baby bottle. You can’t miss it.”

  She nodded and took off for the barn, heart racing. She found what she was looking for easily, grabbed the bottle, and sprinted back to the field. When she got there, Jack and Walker had seemingly pulled the calf free, and she smiled with relief—until she found Luke, still crouched by Gertie, rubbing the heifer’s side as she wheezed out a breath. She watched him, transfixed by his gentleness, his care. He seemed to be whispering something to the cow, something she couldn’t hear over the commotion of Jack and Walker hooting and hollering as the calf bleated its first cry.

  Up and down went Gertie’s side, Luke stroking her hide with each breath she took until, after several seconds, she was still.

  Lily’s breath caught in her throat, and she started forward, the urge to go to Luke compelling her toward him.

  But he rose quickly, brushed his hands on his jeans, and strode to her instead. He didn’t say anything, just grabbed the bottle, and stepped past her and to his brothers.

  “We lost her,” he said, his voice flat, and thrust the bottle into Walker’s chest. “You know what to do.” Walker nodded. “All right then. I’ll go call someone to pick her up.”

  Then he kept on walking, past his truck and up toward the ranch. And Lily just stood there, death and life on either side of her, and the man who said he didn’t believe in permanency clearly shaken by what he’d just seen.

  “I don’t get it,” she said out loud, and Jack backed away and let Walker feed the calf. “You raise them for food, right?”

  Jack nodded. “It’s a huge contradiction. I know. But it’s a whole other thing to watch the life go out of another living creature before her time.”

  She nodded, then glanced back toward the ranch.

 
“Just give him a few,” Jack said. “It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.”

  Maybe so, but Lily hadn’t seen anything like this before—not what had just happened to Gertie and not what had just happened to Luke. This Luke Everett was someone Lily had never seen.

  All these years she thought she’d had him pegged, right down to knowing in her bones that despite what happened between them last night—and this morning—that he was right. They were oil and water. No chance of anything real other than their chemistry.

  “Hey,” Jack said. “What are you two doing together at the crack of dawn anyway?”

  He raised a brow.

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. But she made a mental note to find out just what ingredient she needed to see if maybe, possibly, oil and water could attempt to be mixed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Luke had finished cleaning himself up and was pouring a much needed cup of coffee when he heard the front door open and then close again. He braced himself, expecting Ava, Owen, and their dog, Scully, who always managed to make a frenzied entrance. But they’d barely been gone five minutes, and he knew Scully never cut a good walk short.

  He shook his head as silence instead of paws clicking against the wood floor stretched out before him. He’d thought he wanted to be alone. But instead he welcomed her because being alone meant thinking, and things never turned out well when he let himself do that.

  “Drank the last of the pot,” he called over his shoulder, not yet ready to turn and face her. “But I can put more on.”

  He’d already guessed it was Lily. No Everett entered a house without anything less than a holler. Even his stoic, reserved older brother, Jack, still announced himself when he walked through the front door.

  “Hey.” Lily spoke softly, tentatively, approaching in just the same manner.

  “Hey yourself,” he said, not sure if he wanted to be alone with her. He was too tired to put his guard up, and he was afraid of what he might say to her with it down.

  She took a step closer, but there was still a kitchen table between them, a barrier of safety.

  “I wanted to see if you were okay after—you know…” But she trailed off, not finishing the thought. “Also,” she added, “you’re sort of my ride home, so I wanted to check and see if that was still the case or if I should ask Walker or Jack. I don’t think Jack would mind.” She squinted out the window just past his shoulder and over the sink. “Though it is a beautiful morning. I’d actually enjoy the walk. There’s plenty I should get done today.”